Later romantic

1830 onwards

Berlioz, Liszt and Strauss all pushed the boundaries of the traditional symphony with increased programmatic content and development of the orchestra

Liszt and Strauss abandoned the symphony in favour of the tone poem

Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Brahms developed their ideas within a more traditional symphonoic framework

Some later romantic composers took inspiration from the folk music of their countries using dance rhythms and folk-like melodies (dvorak’s symphonies and smentana’s tone poems are good examples

Bruckner and Mahler vastly increased the scale and proportion of their symphonies

Mahlers third comes in at about 1 and a half hrs, compared to twenty minutes for a typical Mozart or Haydn symphony